How Shall a Thing Be Called seeks to decipher how the naming of an object takes place. The central idea that surrounds the phenomenon is based on the use of simple names to give meanings to objects that are difficult for children to understand. The author of the journal seeks to make parents understand the positive benefits that culminate from using simple name-giving techniques to help them understand the world around them.
Parents have a particular notion when it comes to naming items from their children. The concept of such reasoning is because children find it difficult to pronounce long words. As a result, it is standard practice for parents to teach their children how to learn short, simple words that do not give them a hard time to remember. Studies show that the length of a term is indirectly proportional to its frequency in print (McGee & Morrow, 2005). As a result, short words that are used to identify things will always be used in naming the particular objects. Frequency and brevity play important roles in assisting children to learn and memorize new ideas that otherwise would seem complicated for them to grasp. Nevertheless, perhaps more importantly, by learning simple words children are empowered to process more complicated words and terminologies they come across in the learning process.
Utility concerns itself with the general categorization of words. It is modeled around giving each thing a common name, after which it is possible to categorize it on a general perspective (Brown, 1958). Equally, significant utility seems to give a meaning that is satisfactory to the choice of words used in naming particular items as well as objects. Utility centers itself also around the idea of building a concrete vocabulary of the common language that children have already familiarized. As a result, by understanding the common words, children may sometimes develop their vocabulary of identifying things that they have experienced. A case is where children refer to everyone who is a male who comes to their home as daddy or uncle even when there is no biological relationship.
Cognitive development is explained by two primary options. There are those that hold the school of thought that it is better to start by discriminating to the limits of all the available sensory acuity and seizing each thing in its uniqueness. This notion pays particular attention to every detail as shown, noting every hair on a dog as well as flees a particular dog has. In particular, cognitive development entails neglecting details and abstracting from particular ones in an attempt to group similar items into categories. By this option, it is easier to conclude that abstraction is a sophisticated process rather than an archaic one. Conversely, the other school of thought of the opposite extreme suggests that primitive stages as witnessed in cognition is one that lacks comparative differentiation. It suggests that there are no certain differences on a particular idea or thought, and such can be shown by the distinction between a loud noise and a near silence. The two ideas are supported by children’s vocabulary development in two respects. By use of a simple language to name something familiar to children, they can relate to it and understand how its importance. In addition, as they grow old the foundation of the knowledge they possess proves pivotal in building their general knowledge based on the foundation that they have established over time.
The naming practices that are employed by parents are for helping children understand the general appearance of things as they are. For instance, parents seek to empower children by giving them names to simple items that are used on a daily basis. An example is letting a child know that a spoon is used for eating rather than complicating it by terming it is as piece of silverware that helps in the process of scooping food.
References
Brown, R. (1958). How shall a thing be called? Psychological Review, 65(1), 14-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0041727
McGee, L. M., & Morrow, L. M. (2005). Teaching literacy in kindergarten. New York: Guilford Press.
